A group of pig hunters spotted a missing man and his kidnapped children trudging through the New Zealand wilderness in camouflage with a gun, according to a report.
Tom Phillips vanished with his three children, Ember, 8, Maverick, 9, and Jayda, 11 in 2021 — and no one had known if the kids were dead of alive since then.
The children’s worried mother, Cat, who had custody of the kids, became overwhelmed with emotion when she saw the cell video of her long missing brood made by the hunters in the Pacific nation’s Marokopa region.
“I’m so happy that they’re all there,” she told the paper. “I’m so relieved to see all three of my babies. They’re all alive.”
John McOviney said his 16-year-old grandson were the two hunters who encountered the family near his farm last Thursday and started filming.
The three kids, wearing masks, asked from a distance if “anyone knew they were there,” before marching off into the brush after their dad.
“They were all packed up, they had big packs on,” McOviney told the New Zealand Herald, which obtained the video.
“I think the father sort of kept them moving,” he added.
The hunters, seeing Phillips’ gun, decided not to interact further and phoned New Zealand authorities. Two helicopters scoured the area over the weekend, but the four have not been located, officials said.
Police confirmed that the sighting was “credible” and called it a “positive line of inquiry” despite not being able to find them.
“This is the first time all three of the children have been sighted, which is positive information, and we know it will be reassuring for the children’s wider family,” police said in a statement.
Phillips fled into the wilderness with his children after a dispute with their mother nearly three years ago.
He did not have legal custody of the children and authorities believe the children have had almost no outside contact since they disappeared.
The father was last seen in November, when he stole a quad bike from a rural property and broke into a shop with one of the children in Piopio, according to The Herald.
In August 2023, he disguised himself with glasses and a facemask and visited two stores to buy supplies — including headlamps, batteries, seedlings, buckets and gumboots, suggesting he may have set up a campsite.
Months earlier in May 2023, Phillips robbed a bank and shot at a supermarket worker in Te Kūiti. Police issued a warrant for his arrest and charged him with aggravated robbery, aggravated wounding and illegal possession of a firearm, according to the paper.
In a video message earlier this year, Cat pleaded with Phillips to bring their children back to her.
“I am standing here before you today begging you for your help to bring my babies home,” she said.
“They are just innocent children, they do not deserve to be treated this way. They do not deserve the life that is being provided to them right now.”
She later shared a letter Phillips allegedly had sent to her less than a year after he and the children disappeared. Phillips said he had a “good heart” and asked for her forgiveness, according to The Independent.
“I don’t want to be with someone, I want to be with you Catherine, the woman I have been in love with for over seven years,” Phillips wrote. I can’t make you forgive me. Only you can make that choice and I know you don’t have to.
“I know if I ever give up trying to make things right I will regret it forever,” he continued. “I am sorry for everything I have ever said or done to hurt you. These past nine months I have suffered everyday knowing I should have dealt with things better and knowing that I f—cked up.”
New Zealand authorities have offered a $48,000 reward for any information leading to Phillips’ arrest.
Officials warned the public that he is armed and dangerous and urged them to stay away if he’s sighted.
